Sruthi Atmakur-Javdekar

Sruthi Atmakur–Javdekar is a research associate at the Children’s Environments Research Group (CERG) and a PhD candidate in Environmental Psychology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Sruthi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture, a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture, and is pursuing her Doctoral studies in the Environmental Psychology program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Currently, Sruthi lives in Pune city, India and continues to bridge research and scholarship with CERG, New York. Sruthi’s work focuses on developing research projects with local organizations and linking them to university scholarship, thereby, aiming to influence state, national and global policy-making for children living in urban areas. She is currently the South Asia research coordinator for CERG‘s Child Friendly Places project co-directed by Dr. Pamela Wridt and Dr. Roger Hart.

Sruthi’s dissertation research aims to document and critically evaluate play opportunities for children living in high-rise residential apartments in fast growing cities of urban India. Her primary research questions include: How do the designed physical environments of high-rise residential buildings in fast growing cities of India afford children’s play? What types of play opportunities and environments do children pursue in high-rise residential buildings?

Research Interests: Children’s free and manipulative play, Play for “all” children, Child Friendly Places – cities, communities and schools, Participatory methodologies with children and young people, Participatory Action Research, Fulfilment of children’s rights and their holistic development in urban areas, Community development from a children’s rights perspective, urban ecologies of children in the Global South, and development of an ecological framework for children’s assessments and evaluation of their environments.